# Form Guidance > Decide the smallest truthful form for a repeated problem before designing its implementation: no new artifact, local instruction, durable decision record, skill, runtime, projection, or bounded campaign. Use when asking "should this be a skill?", "what form should this take?", "how should this capability exist?", "is this another agent/runtime?", "should we add a command or document?", or when a generic workflow would hide an authority, inheritance, or recurrence decision. Do not use for ordinary implementation after the form is already accepted. - Skill: `lidessen/form-guidance` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 6 files) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add lidessen/form-guidance` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/lidessen/form-guidance/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Marketing & Growth - Author: lidessen (https://skillmd.com/u/lidessen) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/lidessen/form-guidance --- # Form Guidance ## Principle expression **Primary:** P16 **Supporting:** P04, P14, P15 ## Scope Own one judgment: **what is the smallest form that lets the real actor make the required recurring decision without creating false authority, duplicate memory, or unnecessary machinery?** Do not begin from a preferred noun such as skill, agent, runtime, dashboard, or plan. A form decision answers *how a named domain judgment may exist*, never what that domain judgment should recommend. Do not implement the chosen form, organize its paths, change the Sequence, define a domain methodology, or accept its result. Route those responsibilities after the form decision and stop. ## Principle source Use a host Sequence and its matching interpretations when the host declares them. Otherwise use this skill's read-only fallback in `references/sequence.md`. Read only P16, P04, P14, and P15 for this skill's stable lineage. A host task may select a different current lead, but it does not create co-primary doctrine. ## Start State the form question before proposing an artifact: ```text Actor and next decision: Observed recurring action gap: Concrete evidence: What must survive this session: Who may verify and commit: Strongest keep-as-is case: ``` If the action gap is one-off and no later actor must recover it, return a conversation result. Do not manufacture a durable form. ## Core method 1. **Ground the concrete need.** Read the accepted design, actual runtime, and evidence of repeated action or decision failure. Separate observed facts from the proposed explanation. Name the actor whose next judgment is blocked. 2. **Name the principal form contradiction.** Use P04 to identify the mismatch whose resolution changes the available actions: for example, a durable decision hidden in chat, a runtime capability exposed only as internal JSON, or a recurring judgment re-invented every session. Keep secondary constraints explicit. 3. **Compare the keep-as-is case with candidate forms.** Use [the form matrix](references/form-matrix.md). A candidate must own a distinct decision, lifetime, authority boundary, or runtime capability. It may be a stack: a skill can prepare a decision artifact; a runtime can retain evidence; a CLI can project either. Do not collapse those roles into one “central” form. 4. **Test authority and reconstruction.** For each candidate, name its source, verifier, committer, and whether it can be rebuilt. A view, summary, index, dashboard, or generated plan is a projection unless explicitly promoted to a governed source. P14 forbids giving it fact authority merely because it is convenient. 5. **Choose the minimum valid form and owner.** Use P15: retain only distinctions needed to change the blocked decision while preserving hard constraints. Prefer an existing owner when it already supplies the gate. Route to `skill-engineering` for an agent-facing repeated judgment, `artifact-organization` for authority-and-lifetime layout, a project design decision for a new runtime capability, and `principle-cultivation` for a possible new Sequence meaning. If the selected form needs a new domain method, name that owner and its unsolved domain question; do not draft its doctrine, plan, or workflow here. 6. **Make the decision actionable.** Return a compact form decision: selected form stack, non-selected alternatives, content owner, ownership map, smallest next transition, acceptance observation, and what would disconfirm it. Use the [record template](references/form-decision-record.md) only when handoff, approval, or later recovery needs it. 7. **Verify the form, not its prose.** Run an action probe, a boundary probe, and a context/authority probe from [evaluation](references/evaluation.md). A new form is only supported when the intended actor can use it, it declines adjacent non-scope, and no projection silently becomes a source. ## Form boundary - A **skill** teaches an agent a repeatable judgment at activation time. It does not own project facts, long-lived commitments, execution, or human approval. - A **durable decision artifact** preserves an approved or reviewable judgment across sessions. It does not itself execute work. - A **runtime** owns real execution boundaries, state transitions, evidence, or mechanical verification. It is justified only when a document or skill cannot provide that capability. - A **projection** improves access to a declared source and must be rebuildable. - A **bounded campaign record** coordinates one multi-session transition, then is promoted, archived, or discarded. It is not a permanent institution. - A **new domain method** remains unformed after this Skill selects its carrier. Its problem definition, concepts, and decision method belong to its future owner; form-guidance records the handoff and does not fill that role. ## Completion standard The form decision is ready when it names the action gap, strongest unchanged alternative, selected form stack, authority/source map, smallest next transition, and a falsifiable probe. If recurring need, ownership, or durable decision consequence is unproven, retain the current form and record the uncertainty rather than creating a new skill or system.